


Just for the Record

by Maratus_Caeruleus



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: :), And there's more, Confessions, Cuddling & Snuggling, First Kiss, Fluff, It's an AU, M/M, and keith just really wants to get lances attention, and then collab, and they become youtube rivals, i just don't want to continue these tags, where they're both youtubers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-23
Updated: 2017-07-23
Packaged: 2018-12-05 16:42:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 17,841
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11582055
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Maratus_Caeruleus/pseuds/Maratus_Caeruleus
Summary: Lance is a popular YouTuber by the username of Sharpshooter. Keith has never missed an upload, and when he creates a YouTube channel of his own, it catches the eye of thousands of people, including Lance himself.Based off anAUbylancemcclainson Tumblr.





	Just for the Record

**Author's Note:**

> This story was based off an AU by lancemcclains on Tumblr. A lot of people commented saying it was like Dan and Phil?? I don't know them so if you thought that was what this is, it's not? Sorry?

Lance can happily admit he regrets his entire existence and being right in this moment. This moment, where he is in nothing but shorts, waddling through thick snow in freezing temperature for internet fame. His entire body is shaking and he thinks he’s already lost all feeling in his toes.

I signed up for this. Lance thinks dejectedly. This is what I make a living off of. 

“Holy crow,” Lance groans as he turns towards the camera, along with his cameraman: his best friend Hunk. His arms feel like they’re permanently stuck in a tight cross, pressed against his chest as he shivers and tries to be any sort of warm. Hunk, however, is just smiling at him from behind the camera, buttoned up in a large, puffy, snow jacket and thick snow pants and shoes. He even has earmuffs on, which, in Lance’s opinion, is way past unfair. “H-unk, t-tell m-me why I’m d-doing t-this a-a-again?”

“Uh, because ‘greenmachine5’ told you to?” Hunk responds.

“Why do I-I feel l-like I’ve heard t-that Twitter h-handle before?” Lance shivers, barely keeping his teeth from chattering.

“Are you losing your memory from standing out here so long? It’s Pidge,” Hunk laughs while Lance groans. “You know, you haven’t actually done what he told you to do. You’re supposed to be making a snow angel.”

“No,” the response is immediate, and it has Hunk laughing while Lance stares despondently at him. “I a-am not going to l-lay d-down in the s-snow.”

“You’re not allowed to go inside until you do it,” Hunk says. “So you better do it quick before you get frostbite or something.”

“I’m g-going to d-die,” Lance shivers as he slowly crouches down. “A-and i-it’s g-going to b-be all P-Pidge’s f-fault.” He makes sure to look directly into the camera when he speaks again, “P-Pidge, since I-I know y-you’re watching t-this, I’m t-telling y-you right n-now: no, y-you’re not a-allowed to h-have m-my c-channel when I d-die.”

Hunk laughs as Lance slowly lets himself fall backward into the snow, letting out a squeak he can’t believe came from his mouth. His entire back burns with the cold, and he quickly stretches his arms out and runs them across the snow. His limbs are shaking so hard, it’s difficult to move them, but he does it to the best of his ability.

“T-this is w-what I-I d-do for t-the i-internet,” Lance groans as he stands up. He watches Hunk lean in with the camera to get a good shot of his shoddy snow angel before promptly waddling as fast as he can back to his house. He can hear Hunk laughing behind him as he half walks, half runs back to the back door, and he shoots a glare over his shoulder before shakily pushing the door open.

He wastes no time running to his bedroom and changing out of his now wet and cold shorts, pulling on sweatpants and a turtleneck, and pulling a jacket on over that. He’s still cold after that, so he pulls a couple of blankets off of his bed and wraps them around him like a cloak before exiting his room. 

In the main room, there’s a gigantic pillow fort that he and Hunk had spent time making before the video. He jumps into the inside as he hears Hunk coming back inside from the backyard. 

“Lance?” Hunk calls out, and he can hear the smile in his tone. He refuses to answer, hearing Hunk close the back door and pull off his snow boots. Soft footsteps approach the main room, and from the small windows in the fort, he can see Hunk’s unfairly overdressed legs come into view. Lance shuffles a little bit so he’s wrapped up tighter in his blankets, reveling in the feeling of his feet slowly warming up.

“Lance?” Hunk calls again. “Could you perhaps be in... here?”

Lance can see the camera peek into the fort from the opening, and he turns and hisses at it. Hunk laughs as he pulls the camera away for a moment. Then Hunk is crawling into the fort, the camera turned off in his hands.

Hunk sits next to Lance and opens up the camera, barely flinching when Lance leans against him. They slowly go through the footage together, and Lance can’t help but feel embarrassed. 

“Pidge is going to pay for making me do this,” Lance mumbles as he watches himself waddle towards his house. “What time is it, Hunk?” 

“Uh,” Hunk moves to look at his watch. “4:35.”

“I should set up today’s upload,” Lance sighs. Even though it was twenty-five minutes before his usual upload time, it was better to start the upload of his video early in case any problems arose. 

Hunk nodded, “Yeah, go ahead. I’ll upload this to my laptop and then we can shoot the rest of the video once you’ve fully warmed up.”

“Right,” Lance says as he begins to scoot out of the fort, careful not to disturb the walls. He can hear Hunk move as well as Lance begins towards the stairs up to the second floor where his main recording room is. 

Lance’s house is big, though not mansion-sized. He was able to afford it only once he’d really gotten popular on YouTube. He wasn’t sure what it was about him, but he grew faster than anyone else had on YouTube at the time, and now he spent his time creating videos daily for people.

He shares his house with Hunk; there is more than enough space for the both of them, and he loves being around him. They had been friends since preschool, so it was easy for the two of them to be around each other all day. Hunk does a lot of the editing in his videos, though sometimes Lance likes to pitch in as well. Lance is honestly really grateful, he probably wouldn’t be nearly as popular as he is now if Hunk hadn’t helped him along the way.

Lance is relieved to find the heat blasting in his room and slowly unwraps the blankets from his body. He’s warmed up enough by now that he’s not shivering uncontrollably, and he quickly sits down at his desk, pulling open a tab.

When he pulls up YouTube, he’s already logged in, and he drags the video file he’d prepared yesterday onto the upload tab. Lance boredly opens up Twitter as the video begins its upload, slowly scrolling through his feed.

ooo

Keith is never not home before five. It’s the only schedule he can keep, his sleep schedule suffering for it. It’s not like he has much else to do with his time—he never really has any other plans and his work never keeps him past three. However, to leave work at three means taking one of the freakishly early schedules, but Keith doesn’t mind.

If anything, Keith actually likes getting up before the sun. Sure, he is always tired as hell and groans throughout his entire morning routine, but it makes him feel like he gets stuff done quicker. Like how he gets home and thinks, wow, it’s only ten past three? It makes him feel like he can do anything with the rest of his day.

And yet, usually, he doesn’t. It’s not from a lack of options, Shiro is always more than happy to hang out with him, it’s usually just a lack of motivation. Keith has fallen into this day in day out routine where he gets up, goes to work, comes home and lazes about. At least until five, which is when he gets up and watches YouTube. And, for Keith in the very least, it’s hard for him to break out of that routine without proper incentive. 

“You realize this isn’t exactly healthy, right?” Shiro is sitting across from Keith, raising an amused eyebrow at Keith. He has a small mug of coffee held in his hands, and Keith glares at him from his upside-down position on the couch.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“Keith, come on now. You need a hobby or something. You can’t just keep lazing about in the apartment,” Shiro insists.

“I pay my portion of the rent, don’t I?” Keith grumbles. “Why d’you care what I do with my time?”

“Keith, we’ve known each other for years. You’re not just some roommate, you’ve always been like a brother to me. I can’t just let you sit around all day and just-” Shiro cuts himself off.

“And just what?” Keith shoots Shiro a glare.

“And just waste your life away,” Shiro finishes, giving Keith a hard look. He looks like he has something else to say, but Keith really doesn’t want him to burst into ‘lecture mode.’ 

“So then what do you suggest?” Keith sits up, his mind spinning as all the blood rushes from his face from sitting upside down for so long. When he has a firmer grasp on his surroundings again, he adjusts himself so he’s facing Shiro.

“Well,” Shiro starts. “You like to watch videos and stuff on YouTube. Why don’t you start a channel and make your own?”

“Shiro, that’s ridiculous. I don’t have the time to make actually well edited videos, not to mention I don’t have the software nor am I really funny enough to be entertaining, who would even watch-?”

“Keith.” Shiro is chuckling, and it takes him a moment to realize he’d started ranting.

“You get my point.”

“You don’t have to do it to entertain others. Just do it for fun,” Shiro says while he shrugs. 

“That’s-” Keith is about to say ‘stupid’ when he actually thinks about it for a second. The reason five o’clock was so important not to miss for Keith was because his favorite YouTuber, Sharpshooter, always posted around that time. Every day, without fail. Keith had been one of the very few to subscribe to him before he got really popular, and when he had just been starting, he had been making gaming videos just for fun. Then, once he got popular, he started uploading more and earning money off of his videos. 

Keith always found it amazing how he can just do that; make videos all the time and goof around and have people across the world adore him. It’s something Keith partially envies, though he’d never admit it. 

But, even if he could make videos like he does, what would he even do? What would it even matter if nobody watches them?

Unless he does get people to watch them. And if people start noticing him and he gets popular enough, then maybe even other YouTubers would notice him.

Keith had always wanted to meet him. The name came from his impeccable aim in shooting games, though he never really called himself ‘Sharpshooter.’ He was quick to introduce himself as Lance on his channel, and once he’d started doing more filmed stuff of himself, Keith had found himself enamoured with the boy.

Keith always got extremely psyched up when he uploaded and was always home at five to make sure he was within the first few people to like his video. If he could meet Lance, though, that’d practically be a dream come true. 

Shiro is looking at him smugly from his armchair, and Keith groans. 

“I can’t just- It’s not like- ugh,” Keith stands up, marching to the kitchen.

“Don’t you just hate it when I’m right?” Shiro calls after him, and Keith waves him off, glaring at him over the kitchen counter.

“Okay, but, what would I even do?” Keith starts fixing himself a cup of coffee, even though it’s pretty late in his schedule to be having it.

“Like I said, it doesn’t matter. Just do what you want to do,” Shiro shrugs. 

“Okay, but just doing ‘what I want to do’ won’t be good enough. Plus, I don’t know what I’d want to do which is why I’m asking you.”

“Just play a game or something. Isn’t that what a bunch of YouTubers do?”

“Yeah, but since so many people already record themselves playing games, no one’s going to want to watch me play them.”

“What does it matter if people watch your videos?”

“What’s the point if no one does?” Keith groans, shaking his head.

“You’ll think of something, I’m sure. In the meantime, though, I have to get going.”

“What, got a hot date or somethin?” Keith asks sarcastically.

“As if,” Shiro rolls his eyes. “I’ll be back in a couple hours. Don’t burn the apartment down.”

“No promises,” Keith says as Shiro opens the door, stepping out and locking it behind himself. Then Keith is left to his thoughts, as he runs through video ideas.

Lance does whatever he wants, but that’s only because he’s so popular. As for what Keith wants to do, there’s so little he does that isn’t work and sleep. However… there is one thing… 

ooo

“Lance, have you seen this?” Lance turns his head when he hears Hunk beside him, who’s got his phone up to his face, watching something. He has one earbud in, his eyes intent on the device. He has his elbows up on the table, his latte set in front of him on the small, round table they’re sitting at.

The rest of the coffee shop is bustling, people moving in and out, though none of them seem to pay the two any attention. Lance isn’t complaining too much, while he likes the fame that comes with his channel, it’s nice to still be able to live normally without fans trailing behind him.

“Seen what?” Lance leans over and Hunk tilts his phone so Lance can see a little better. It’s a video of some guy dressed in a whole lot of black, his red and white jacket contrasting his black shirt and jeans. He has a mullet, which Lance makes a face at, and he is speaking quickly, pointing at papers pinned up on a corkboard and connecting small pictures with red yarn. “What is he doing?”

“His name’s Keith. Apparently, he does like, conspiracy theories or something, but he’s getting kind of popular. Especially after this one video he did with some friend of his. He’s really blowing up on YouTube, dude.”

Lance frowns and pulls his laptop out of his bag, scooching his cappuccino over to make room for it on the table. He pulls it open, taking a sip of his drink as it slowly connects to the coffee shop’s awful wifi. 

Once he’s able to, he loads up YouTube, “What’s his channel name?”

“Uhh,” Hunk takes a moment to look for the name, “It’s just keithkogane, no space.”

“Could you maybe spell that?” Lance purses his lips as Hunk slowly starts spelling out the name. Once he has it entered properly, he begins his search. 

Hunk is right, of course. Keith is gaining popularity, and fast. He only has three videos up, each one some weird theory with him making himself look like a fool as he rapidly talks about faking the moon landing like it’s fact. Despite the poor editing and overall poor video quality, he’s already got a good couple hundred thousand views on his most recent video.

Lance also notices, with a start, that he uploads at the same time as Lance. Right at five o’clock. He has a few social media sites set on his channel page, and Lance immediately clicks on his Twitter.

His picture is of him and the other guy who was in his third video, both smiling at the camera. His bio is lackluster, in fact, there’s nothing in his bio at all, which Lance finds mildly amusing. Lance begins rapidly searching through his tweets. There aren’t many, and the posting times are far and few between. Lance quickly gets to his older posts, and almost loses it when he scrolls past an image.

He scrolls back up to get a better look at it. It’s a younger Keith, by at least three years, standing next to a large statue. The statue is of some weird humanoid thing with wings, and Keith is standing beside it, a genuinely happy look on his face and he’s holding two thumbs up as he smiles widely at the camera.

After a quick google search, he finds the statue is in West Virginia, and is of Mothman, some strange humanoid moth creature. Lance laughs then, because holy crow, he’s such a nerd. 

“What is it?” Hunk leans over to see the picture. He chuckles a little as well, “Is that a statue of Mothman? When and why was that made?”

“I don’t know, but I am so Tweeting him,” Lance says as he pulls up a new Tweet.

@keithkogane New upcoming YouTuber is a conspiracy theorist and Mothman enthusiast. Doesn’t get much better than that does it? :p

Lance sends out his tweet, leaning back in his chair as he slowly browses through the rest of Keith’s social media. He doesn’t have much on his Facebook either, but then Lance realizes he’s gotten a response.

Already? Jeez, Lance opens his Twitter back up to see what Keith responded with.

Replying to @sharpshooter Don’t forget believer in aliens and other dimensions. Jealous?

ooo

Keith just can’t help himself when he snarkily responds to Lance’s Tweet, and is now regretting his existence because of it.

There it goes, right out the door. My one chance to actually meet Lance. It’s all over now. Say goodbye to Keith, world.

Keith groans as he flops down on his couch. Lance hasn’t replied, and Keith’s sure he’s offended him or something, somehow. He struggles to wrap his brain around why exactly he said that, but he can’t come up with a good enough reason. 

Lance was just teasing, so Keith teased him back. That’s like, a thing you do, right?

Only with good friends, not strangers! UGH.

Keith rolls over until he falls from the couch onto the floor, groaning as a dull pain shoots up his nose. He continues to roll until he’s rolled himself under the coffee table, and he just stares up at the bottom of the table. Keith has no idea what to do.

He’s screwed up, bad. He’s sure of it. But what could he do to remedy his mistake?

Keith can barely even begin to answer his question before he hears the front door unlock, and he scoots himself so all of his limbs are under the table.

“Keith?” He hears Shiro calls out. He groans in response. 

Shiro is amused to find Keith under the coffee table, “Keith, what happened?”

“I just ruined my life, don’t worry about it.”

“Keith-”

“Shiro.”

“Just tell me what happened.”

“I just did.”

“Keith-” There’s warning in Shiro’s voice, and Keith relents.

“Y’know Sharpshooter-”

“Keith, how could I not?”

“Well he tweeted me and I tweeted him back but now he’s not responding and I think I screwed up really bad-”

“Oh my god, Keith, your life is not ruined.”

“It basically is!”

“Get out from under the coffee table, please Keith,” he can hear the amusement in Shiro’s tone, and Keith shakes his head.

“Nope. This is where I’ll stay and where I’ll die.”

“Keith, come on-”

Shiro can’t finish before Keith hears his phone go off. He knows the sound, it’s impossible for him to miss when he’s been listening for the sound for a good half hour now. It’s the sound of a Twitter notification.

Keith has never sat up quicker in his life, and is quick to regret it as his forehead bangs against the bottom of the coffee table. And, as the responsible adult he is, Shiro breaks out laughing. Keith incoherently grumbles as he slides out from under the coffee table, scrambling for his phone which is half-buried in between the sofa cushions.

He turns it on, barely able to contain his giddiness when it is Lance that’s Tweeted him. Though, there’s no one else who Keith can really think of that would Tweet him.

He opens up his Twitter and quickly finds Lance’s reply. 

Replying to @keithkogane Haha, yeah right.

Keith barely hesitates.

Replying to @sharpshooter Does it look like I’m joking?

He’s hit send before he realizes what he’s doing. Or the fact that he’s doing the same thing he did before. But that’s okay, right? Because he responded before, right?? Keith faintly sees Shiro walk to his room, chuckling, while Keith keeps his gaze on his phone. Lance responds quicker than last time.

Replying to @keithkogane Well now it doesn’t.

Keith takes careful notices of their little discussion. It’s starting to gain retweets and likes from the people following Lance’s twitter, and Keith is slowly gaining followers. It’s kind of nerve wracking.

Keith quickly types out his reply.

Replying to @sharpshooter I don’t joke about these kinds of things :p

ooo

Lance has been a YouTuber for a multitude of years by now, so it’s no surprise to him that his fans have hopped on something new to try and get him to be a part of. He especially expects some sort of reactions from his fans after he’s been arguing with this ‘keithkogane’ guy for the past couple weeks. 

Well, arguing is a strong word. It’s more like Lance finding some of Keith’s old posts and trying to embarrass him with them. He’s stubborn though, and while he does rise easily to insults, he has no shame when it comes to things he’s done in the past, apparently. Or at least things he’s passionate about, which Lance can respect.

Keith has risen up in subscribers even quicker than Lance originally did, which is saying a lot. He always manages to upload daily, like Lance does, and always uploads at the same time Lance does. Lance isn’t quite sure what to make of that, so he ignores it for the time being.

He can’t help but be a little envious though. For the longest time, Lance has been top of the charts, and Keith is catching up to him like it’s nothing. 

“Lance!”

“What?”

“Did you just hear any of what I just said?” Pidge looks agitatedly at Lance from the rearview mirror. Hunk is driving while Lance is in the seat beside him, Pidge hadn’t been able to call shotgun as fast as Lance had.

“Uhm, no?” he raises an eyebrow as he turns in his seat to look at Pidge properly. 

“I was asking when the last time you checked your Twitter was,” Pidge rolls his eyes.

“Like, yesterday? This morning? I don’t know, why?”

“No, I mean like fully checked, not just looked for notifications,” Pidge says.

“Ah, I don’t know. Again, why?”

“Your fans are going berserk,” Pidge laughs as Lance’s face falls.

“What kind of berserk? Is it like, a manageable berserk, or like a ‘I’m going get in some massive trouble for something I didn’t do’ berserk?”

“It’s manageable, but it’s absolutely hilarious. Just about everyone knows how you and Keith have been going back on forth on Twitter, and now they’ve formed teams for you both. Since you both argue just about every time you @ each other, all of your fans are beginning to root for who will win your little arguments.”

“Well, am I at least winning?”

“I think so? Right now you still have more followers than Keith so there are overall more people voting for #TeamLance but #TeamKeith is catching up, dude.”

“Team Lance and Team Keith?” Lance snorts. “How creative.”

“We’re here,” Hunk interrupts the two, parking the car. Lance unbuckles himself before stepping out of the car, his feet sinking a good inch into the snow. Pidge steps out beside him as Lance shuts the car door, towing a couple sleds in his arms. 

They decided to drive out to a small park, and were lucky enough to find it mostly unpopulated. It was usually just a regular, run of the mill park, but it bordered next to a mountain, which meant great slopes for sledding in the winter.

Lance moved to help Hunk get out all of the recording equipment while Pidge began trudging towards the higher slopes. 

It takes them a few minutes to get setup, but once they are ready, the actual recording is relatively easy. 

Lance decided they should start by setting up a little obstacle course down the hill to try and weave around. Pidge has it easy, he’s light enough that he can maneuver through anything Lance sets up. Lance has a harder time, going a bit too fast to dodge some of the cones.

Lance screeches as he slides directly into a cone, sputtering as the cone throws him off balance and he falls off his sled. Lance gets up and throws a playful glare at his friends who are both laughing at him behind the camera. 

They give Hunk a go too, but he ends up just sliding straight down the hill, none of the obstacles even managing to throw him off as he barrels through them.

Lance and Pidge then began trying to race down the hill, which doesn’t really work out since Lance is heavier than the short-stack and always beats him.

“Come on, one more round,” Pidge trudges stubbornly up the hill, and Lance groans.

“Fine, one more race. But then we’re moving onto something else,” Lance rolls his eyes, smiling. 

Once they’re positioned at the top of the hill, Lance glances over at Hunk, who’s been counting them down for all the past races. 

“Alright, ready? Three… Two… One… Go!”

Lance starts off a little slower than he usually does, and Pidge barrels past him. In a split-second decision, Lance dips his hands into the snow, which slows him, but he has a plan. He forms the snow into a ball in his hands, watching carefully as he slowly catches up to Pidge. Once he’s close enough, he chucks the snowball as hard as he can, nailing Pidge in the face.

A loud screech erupts from him as he goes tumbling off his sled. Lance laughs triumphantly as he passes Pidge’s befallen position, nearing the end of the slope.

Right as he’s about to start slowing down, a rush of coldness and wetness hits the side of his face, knocking him off balance and ultimately off of his sled. He wipes the snow off of his face as he sits up, ready to start an argument with Pidge for doing exactly what Lance did, but blinks to find it wasn’t Pidge who threw the snowball.

No, he’d recognize that mullet anywhere.

“Keith?” the words come out more like an indignant screech than Lance would have liked, but he can’t help it. What is he doing here? He didn’t even know Keith lived in the same country as him!

Lance can hear Pidge and Hunk laughing at him but doesn’t turn to them. Keith is smirking at him with mirth, his arms crossed.

ooo

Keith never paid much mind to Shiro when he said Keith was a little too hot-headed for his own good. Now he wishes he had.

Tweeting Lance back was one thing, but he just interrupted his video so he could knock him off of his sled. Admittedly, it was hilarious, but now he’s been swept up into their recording, and he can only imagine how well that’s going to go over in the comment section.

Once they finish recording, Keith is swept along with them to their (apparently) favorite coffee shop so they can all review the footage together. Keith is confused beyond belief, he barely knows any of these people and now he’s getting coffee with them and making videos with them? It’s certainly one of the more interesting days he’s had in awhile.

“The fact that you zoomed in on Keith right as he nailed Lance in the face is amazing, Hunk,” Pidge laughs from where he’s sitting next to Hunk, leaning over to get a look at his laptop. 

“Okay, yeah, can we talk about that for a second,” Lance sits up in his chair, and Keith raises an eyebrow at him. “What were you doing there?”

Keith shrugs,” I like to go on walks sometimes. Is that against the law or something?”

“Aw, yeah, I’m just going to go on a walk today. Oh hey, look it’s that popular YouTube guy, let’s nail him in the face with snow. Flawless plan,” Lance rolls his eyes, taking a sip of his cappuccino.

“Well, we’d been talking over Twitter, I just thought, why not? You know?” Keith says. 

If he’s going to be honest with himself, Keith doesn’t know why exactly he did what he did. He could have just kept walking, but Lance was just right there. That could have been his only chance to meet him, and he wasn’t exactly going to let it slip by.

“Flawless logic,” Lance murmurs, pulling out his phone and checking what looks to be his Twitter. Keith doesn’t really know, but he’s not going to snoop and find out. He instead pulls out his phone and checks his own Twitter, checking through all of his notifications. 

There are more people who have Tweeted him in the past week than he has had in his entire life. It’s all his, and apparently Lance’s, fans. They all want him to do this or that, and Keith isn’t exactly sure he likes it.

@keithkogane i dunno wth is going on with @sharpshooter but i’m so for #TeamKeith

@keithkogane omgmgm are you ever going to make a video on mothman?????

@keithkogane u should do a collab with @sharpshooter !!!

The last one catches Keith a little off guard. He’s seen other YouTubers do collaborations with each other, but he isn’t really sure how he’d do a collaboration with Lance of all people. The videos Keith makes are completely different from Lance’s, what would they even do?

Well, anything I guess. I technically kind of just collabed with him right now didn’t I? I was in his video… So…??

“Jeez Keith, if you think any harder your head might explode,” Lance is laughing beside him.

“What?” comes Keith’s intelligent answer, of which only makes Lance laugh harder.

“You had this like, serious, contemplative look on your face like you were trying to figure out how to fix all the world’s problems. What were you even looking at anyway?”

Keith still has his Twitter open, and he promptly closes it. “Nothing.”

“Uh huh,” Lance smirks as he leans back in his chair, continuing to check his phone. Keith forces himself to look back down at his phone and to control the heat rising to his cheeks.

Get it together, Kogane.

“Hey, guys,” Pidge speaks up. “Y’know, like, everyone on Twitter wants you two to do a collab.”

Crap.

Lance shrugs, “Yeah, I’ve seen those kinds of comments everywhere. I’d be fine with it if mister conspiracy theorist over here is fine with it.”

“Uh, sure,” and there he goes. Keith digs his own grave once again. “But, what would we do?”

“Well,” Lance purses his lips. “I’ve seen a lot of people also asking for a Q and A video. We could very well do that. It’s pretty easy, and usually doesn’t involve me freezing my butt off in the snow.” Lance glares at Pidge from across the table, and the short brunette only grins devilishly.

Keith shrugs, “I guess I’d be fine with that.”

Lance raises an eyebrow, “You guess? That’s very non-committal.”

“Well, what about a stream? I feel like it would make more sense that way, because then we can get direct questions from people, and.. Stuff.” Keith helplessly stutters off his sentence.

Keith likes Lance’s videos, he really does, but there’s a theme he’s always noticed since Lance began YouTube. His videos are short, they’re concise, and Lance is always happy and playful.

Lance doesn’t stream much, but when he does, it’s completely different. He usually starts off with his usual overly cheery self, but it slowly mellows out. He acts more like himself, and Keith kind of likes that better. It’s more natural and shows a bit more Lance’s colors.

Lance nods his head, ”Sounds good to me. It just means we won’t be able to cut out anything you don’t want in it,” Lance teases.

Keith shrugs, “Fine by me.”

“We’ll see,” Lance chuckles. “Here, give me your phone number so we can discuss dates later.”

“Uh, okay,” Keith rambles off his phone number as Lance inputs it into his phone.

“Got it,” Lance says, standing. “Well, we better be off. You need a ride or anything, mullet?”

Keith frowns at the name, “No. I’ll be fine.”

“Alright,” he says, and Hunk packs up his laptop while Pidge stands and makes his way to the door. “I’ll see you around.”

And then the three are gone.

ooo

“Are you sure you’ll be fine?” Hunk turns in the doorway, giving his friend a concerned expression. “You have the stream today and-”

“Dude, just go. You shouldn’t ditch your family at this time of year, not for some stupid stream,” Lance rolls his eyes.

“I mean, I know, but you always have me assist your streams to make sure all the sound is working and you won’t have the minivan while I’m gone and-”

“Hunk,” Lance puts his hands on his friend’s shoulders. “I’ll be fine. Keith and I can handle the stream just fine. And I don’t need the minivan, it’ll just be me, so the Jeep will work just fine-”

“But what if the Jeep breaks down again and you-”

“Hunk,” Lance stares his friend down.

“Okay, okay. I’m just worried. I know how you get sometimes when you don’t have anyone to hang with and-”

“I have Pidge, he’s practically available all the time,” Lance rolls his eyes. “Just go, your family is waiting for you.”

“Okay,” Hunk takes a deep breath. “Okay. I’ll see you in a couple weeks. Don’t do anything crazy, like burn the house down, or flood the house, or invite Pidge to make dinner-”

“I won’t, now go!” Lance laughs as Hunk waves to him, jogging through the snow to get to minivan. He waves again as he pulls out of the driveway and drives away. Lance waves back until Hunk is out of sight before turning and re-entering his house. He locks the door behind himself and sighs.

Keith will be here in a few hours. I’ve got a lot of stuff to do, Lance groans.

The living room is a mess since he and Hunk decided to watch a movie the night before. It just kind of escalated from there. Lance has to get that cleaned up, and then set it up for a stream, not to mention he hasn’t actually set aside some questions for the stream even though he said he had already.

Lance hastily begins cleaning up, spending most of his time setting up the equipment. He has to get it just right, has to test all of his microphones, has to get the camera angled perfectly. It’s a lot of focus and effort, but once Lance has it right, he flops down on his couch and waits for Keith to arrive.

He picks out a few questions from his Twitter, then a few more. He’s really just blindly picking questions without even really reading them, and screenshotting them.

He doesn’t even realize he’s dozed off until he startles awake to the sound of a firm knock at the door. Lance makes an unintelligible screech as he falls off the couch, and scrambles to stand. He smooths down his hair as quickly as he can, checking the living room to make sure it’s prepared before he runs to answer the door.

He takes a deep breath before he unlocks the door and opens it, leaning against the wall to seem any sort of casual. Keith somehow out-casuals him though, he has his phone in one hand, a bright red helmet tucked in the crook of his other elbow, raising an eyebrow at Lance as he opens the door.

“Uh, welcome. I guess,” Lance stutters out, trying and failing to be cool.

“I’ve been out here for like, ten minutes, and have texted you like, twenty messages. Where were you?”

“Uh…” Lance doesn’t know how to respond to that, and Keith rolls his eyes.

“Whatever. Can I just come in? It’s freezing out here,” Keith says, shoving his phone in his back pocket.

“Yeah, of course,” Lance steps aside, and Keith walks in, slipping off snow boots and putting them on the shoe rack beside the door. Lance glances out the door before closing it, seeing a sleek, red and black motorcycle parked next to his royal blue jeep. “I didn’t know you had a motorcycle,” Lances notes as he closes and locks the door.

“Well, you don’t know much about me at all,” Keith shrugs.

“Fair enough,” Lance says, leading Keith into the living room. “Do you want anything to drink or something?”

“I’m fine,” Keith shrugs off his thick winter jacket. “Anywhere I can put this though?”

“Just on the back of the couch is fine,” Lance shrugs, pulling out his phone to check the time. Since apparently Lance has slept past the time Keith was supposed to arrive, there is now only ten minutes until 5, which was when they are supposed start the stream. He also duly notes the multitude of messages he’s gotten from Keith, embarrassedly dismissing the notifications.

Lance starts his last check on all of the equipment, handing Keith a microphone to test as he sits down on the couch. The camera’s working just fine, but Lance has to adjust Keith’s microphone sensitivity. Once he’s sure everything’s working, he sits back into the couch, taking a deep breath.

“Are we ready?” Keith asks.

“Yup,” Lance says. “Now let’s just hope Youtube wants to work with us.” Lance leans forward once again to start up the stream, and he can see Keith fidgeting a little from the corner of his eye. “You nervous or something, mullet?” Lance laughs, noting the couple hundred thousand people already on the stream, despite it not starting yet.

“Something,” Keith mumbles, and Lance turns to him.

“You don’t have to do this if you don’t want to,” Lance shrugs when Keith gives him a look, turning back to his laptop. “Just thought I’d say it. I’m not going to force you to do this just because our fans want us to.”

“I’m fine,” Keith says.

“If you say so,” Lance mumbles, hovering his mouse over the stream button. He smiles when he speaks again, “Oh, also, make sure to look at the camera. You forget sometimes.”

He doesn’t give Keith the time to respond before he starts the stream, leaning back to look at the camera. The red ‘live’ button glows on the side of the camera, and Lance takes that as a good enough sign, waving to the camera. “Hey, can you see us? Are we good to go?”

He waits tens seconds for the stream lag to catch up. Then the chat bursts into ‘hello!’s and ‘we can see you’s.

“Good, looks like everything’s set up right! Hello everyone! I’m here with the infamous Keith Kogane to do a Q and A stream, as heavily requested by all of you!” Lance waves to the camera, giving it a wide smile. “Keith, say hi!”

“Hi,” Keith says slowly, glancing at Lance.

ooo

Keith is a bumbling mess, or at least it feels like it. He just isn’t sure how to act. Lance is doing the whole overly happy thing, as he usually does, and Keith doesn’t know how to respond to that.

It takes a while for Lance to finish greeting his fans, and then they actually get into the questions. Lance is smiling faintly down at his phone, scrolling through questions before he looks up.

“Okay, this is an easy start, @marklars asks: Which is your favorite, cats or dogs?” Lance looks up the camera, and Keith reminds himself to do so as well.

“Cats,” Keith answers, just as Lance answers as well.

“Dogs.” There’s a brief silence as Lance slowly turns his head towards Keith, glaring him down.

“What?” Keith says indignantly, crossing his arms.

“Cats? Are you joking? They’re evil.”

“No they’re not! They’re small and cute and cuddly-”

“A dog can also be those things, but they’re even better because they can answer commands and come to you when you call them-”

“Cats can do that as well, they’re just more intelligent than dogs, so they won’t blindly answer to humans!”

“Oh, don’t even start with me-”

With no one to stop the argument, it ends up a good ten minutes long, but Keith thinks it’s worth it as Lance is losing his point.

“Dogs are just big dumb fluffballs, cats are way better,” Keith speaks with finality, and Lance rolls his eyes.

“You keep telling yourself that,” Lance checks the chat. “Because, I’m seeing a lot of people voting for dogs in the chat.”

“Uh huh. Sure. If that’s the case, let me see the chat myself,” Keith smirks.

“Uh, yeah, go ahead, mullet,” Lance shoves the laptop into Keith’s lap, and he struggles to keep up with the ever-moving chat.

“Uh, yeah, I’m seeing a lot of cat. I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Lance grabs the laptop back, frowning at the chat.

“There is a lot of cat-”

“Aha!” Keith sits up, ”See! Way better.”

“Sure, sure,” Lance rolls his eyes. “Whatever. Listen, we need to get onto the next question…”

Each question brings a new argument to the table, and Keith finds it mildly amusing. It’s not like he wants to disagree with Lance, it’s just he always has a different opinion than him. It’s like they’re polar opposites, but Keith doesn’t mind that.

“Okay, but have you seen the evidence behind the fake moon landing theory-”

“No, it’s stupid! NASA is still sending ships out, that can’t be fake-”

“Lance, listen listen listen-”

“I’m listening.”

“Lance, the flag was rippling as if it was in wind. There was no crater at the landing site, Lance!”

“There are perfectly reasonable explanations for that!” Lance exclaims.

“That’s what they want you to think!” Keith stands up, pointing at Lance. “They give you these explanations but those have holes in them too!”

“Holy crow, Keith, please sit down,” Lance barks out a laugh, covering his mouth with his hand. Keith begrudgingly sits, staring Lance down.

“Do you even watch my videos? I’ve already worked through this problem,” Keith rolls his eyes.

“Yeah, I do, it’s adorable to watch you believe in something so incorrect,” Lance’s laughing only gets louder at Keith’s crestfallen face.

“It’s not incorrect, the evidence-!” Keith can’t help how his face flushes. Whether it’s because of his rushed explanations, or because Lance technically did just call him cute, he’s not sure he wants to know.

“Yeah, yeah, alright, we’ve spent like, half an hour on this question alone, we need to move on,” Lance says. He’s exaggerating, of course, it’s only been like, fifteen minutes.

“You just can’t prove me wrong,” Keith smirks.

“I don’t have the willpower to prove you wrong right now,” Lance mutters.

It’s getting later and later, and the stream just keeps going. Lance never really set a stop time, and it’s not like Keith has anywhere to be. Besides, the fans are still as rambunctious as when the stream just started, so they might as well keep going.

However, as it gets later, Keith starts to lose steam, and he can tell Lance is mellowing out as well. Keith doesn’t mind, though. Lance is more like himself later in the streams anyway.

“Okay, listen Keith.”

“I’m listening.”

“Pidge really wants you to roll around in the snow.”

“Why?”

“Because I did it before and now he’s watching our stream and doesn’t think you’ll do it any other time than now.”

“I mean, okay.”

“He also wants it to be how I did it.”

“How did you do it?” Keith raises an eyebrow, before promptly remembering Lance’s video. It was a couple weeks old now. “Okay, no. No no no. I am not going out in the snow in nothing but shorts.”

“The Pidge demands it, Keith.”

“Yeah, well Keith doesn’t answer to ‘The Pidge.’ I’m not doing that.”

“I dunno, Keith,” Lance leans forward to read the live chat. “I think people really want you to do it.”

“Lance-”

“It’s like, for a few seconds. You just have to make a snow angel, dude.”

“Okay, but when you did it you had a pillow fort to hide in and warm up in! I see nothing of the sort for me!” Keith yelps indignantly.

“That can be arranged. Just do it!” Lance grins, and Keith falters. He really does not want to go out in the snow in shorts.

“Fine.”

ooo

Lance prepares to switch the stream to his handheld camera, also making sure to pull on some warmer clothing than just a t-shirt and jeans. Meanwhile, Keith is in the other room, borrowing some of Lance’s shorts.

He talks with the chat as he sets up some blankets and pillows on the couch. Then Keith steps out of the room, slamming the door shut behind himself. He has his arms crossed, his posture slouched, and he looks absolutely miserable. Lance can’t help the laugh that bubbles up.

“Dude-” Lance starts.

“Don’t even start.”

“Keith-”

“Shut up. Can we just get this over with?”

“Fine,” Lance continues laughing, not missing how Keith’s face flushes red. Lance switches the stream to his handheld, checking everything on his laptop just to make sure everything is in working order, before jogging over to the backdoor, where Keith is already waiting.

He unlocks the door, and Keith immediately shivers. Lance laughs as he watches Keith shuffle out of the house, a frown prominent on his face. Lance keeps the camera on him, and tries to adjust the settings. It’s dark out, and the camera is having a hard time with the low lighting.

“Okay, just make a s-snow angel, right?” Keith stutters out, turning and glaring at Lance.

“Yup,” Lance grins.

“T-that’s evil,” Keith says, crouching down into the snow.

“Yeah. Not so fun when you’re the one doing it, huh?” Lance laughs. Keith doesn’t answer, instead flopping his back down into the snow. He tenses and yelps from the cold of the snow, and Lance laughs harder.

He’s quick about his snow angel, as Lance was, promptly standing and breaking into a sprint towards the house when he’s decided he’s finished. Lance follows his form with the camera until he’s safely inside, then turns to see the snow angel. It’s surprisingly good, better than Lance’s.

Lance then rushes to get back inside, closing and locking the backdoor. He slips off his snow gear, moving to switch the cameras back. On the couch there’s a bundle of blankets and pillows, no Keith in sight. Once he’s switched the cameras back, he smiles and begins to talk to his fans, giving Keith some time to warm up.

After a few minutes, the pile of blankets and pillows shifts, just a little.

“Oh? Looks like we might get a Keith sighting after all,” Lance laughs. The pile does not move again.

“Come on, get up Keith. We have to finish this stream at some point,” Lance shoves the pile, and it shifts again.

“Never,” Keith’s muffled voice comes through the blankets.

“Come on, you should get up,” Lance nudges the pile again.

“No, it’s too cold.”

“You’ll be fine you big baby,” Lance rolls his eyes.

“Let me die of frostbite in peace.”

“Can’t do that, unfortunately,” Lance says, standing up and walking around the couch. “Hunk would kill me.”

“Good.”

“Wow, I see how it is,” Lance grins. “If that’s how you’re going to be-”

Lance then vaults over the back of the couch, landing on top of Keith’s bundle of pillows and blankets, promptly bouncing off of him and landing on the ground in a laughing fit. The Keith cocoon rolls off the couch from the momentum of Lance’s fall and lands on top of Lance.

That only causes Lance to laugh harder, struggling to get out from under the pile of blankets. Keith, however, being in the blankets, makes it much harder for Lance to move.

Keith shuffles, his head poking out of the blankets. His eyes wander for a second before they lock on Lance’s, his face quickly shifting from pale to a bright pink.

“Uh-” Lance can’t even say anything before Keith rolls off of Lance, retreating into the room he had changed in before. Lance sits there for a moment, his mouth agape as he can feel his face heating up. That just happened.

Lance quickly moves to sit back up on the couch, looking to the camera. “So, any more questions?”

The chat is bursting with comments, some confused, some concerned, it was just kind of a mess. Lance feels his phone buzz in his back pocket and quickly checks it. It’s a message from Pidge and it has one word.

8:41 pm  
Smooth.

Of course Pidge is still watching, and of course he has to mock Lance. Keith re-emerges from the room a few moments later, wearing a black t-shirt and pants. When he returns to his spot on the couch, he wraps his winter coat over his shoulder and crosses his arms.

“Okay!” Lance turns his attention from Keith onto his phone. “More questions, right. Uhm, right okay. @beautyrest asks: What’s your favorite color?”

“Red.”

“Blue.”

Keith turns to look at Lance, a disbelieving look on his face.

“You’re joking-”

“Nope.”

“I swear-”

Everything seems to pull itself back together, and Lance refuses to mention what had happened. Everything was normal again, so Lance wasn’t going to try and disturb that.

The questions drag on for awhile longer, but eventually, Lance runs out of pre-saved questions. He tries to scope out a decent question in the chat, but it is moving too fast to pick anything out. Plus, from what he can tell, most of the questions are about the moment that just happened that he dares not mention. He tries Twitter as well, but everyone seems intent on knowing what happened.

Lance sighs, “I’m not seeing any further questions…”

“That’s a load of garbage, I can see the chat from here,” Keith says, snatching Lance’s laptop from his lap. He moves to take it back but decides against it. It’s likely already too late, Keith’s already seen it. It’s all over.

Keith watches the screen intently, his eye moving up and down the page frantically, trying to keep up with the chat. Lance holds his breath as he waits for Keith to speak again.

“I don’t know why everyone’s all confused on what happened awhile back,” Keith rose an eyebrow at the screen. “Lance jumped on me and we fell off the couch. Big deal.”

Lance feels like he should say something to add on to that, but he can’t find the words. He watches Keith scroll through the chat for a little while longer before turning back to the camera.

“Uh, right so… I guess if there aren’t any more questions.. We should sign off,” Lance suggests.

“Yeah I’m not seeing much, actually,” Keith purses his lips, pushing Lance’s laptop back to him.

Once the chat catches up the slight lag, it’s filled with ‘goodbye’s and other comments. “Well, I hope you all enjoyed this stream! We might do more like it in the future, I don’t really know? But until next time, bye!!”

Keith waves to the camera as well, “Bye.”

Lance shuts off the stream before shutting his laptop.

ooo

Even hours after the stream has ended, Keith has not left. It’s not like Keith doesn’t want to leave, well, it’s partially that, but it’s not even his fault! It started with Lance inviting him to watch a movie, it was snowing pretty hard outside so he and Keith both figured it’d be better to try and wait out the storm.

However, when the snow doesn’t let up, and it’s ten o’clock at night, it’s not like there’s much elsewhere Keith can go. He checks out the backdoor to see the weather every half hour or so, but the world hates him or something, and the snow isn’t letting up. So, he instead resigns himself to Lance’s couch, sprawled out across it while Lance is sitting on the recliner kitty corner to him. The recording equipment is lazily put off the the side so the two of them can see the TV.

Keith isn’t really sure what’s playing, Lance just pulled up Netflix and turned on something random, but Keith doesn’t mind. It’s not very loud, and it’s entertaining enough to keep his eyes on, though it’s more background noise than anything. Something to keep him awake.

“Hey Keith?” Lance spins the recliner around, it’s one of the more expensive ones that rotate on a pedestal. He’s bundled up in some light blue blankets, his face only illuminated by the TV screen.

“Yeah?” Keith props himself up on his elbow so he can see Lance better.

“Would you consider us friends?”

Keith cocks his head, giving Lance a strange look.

“I mean! I dunno, it’s just… we’ve known each other for a couple weeks now? The first time we actually hung out was a few days ago, and I mean, when I met Hunk we were in school and we were really young so we just kind of clicked. But I don’t know when it comes to you. All we’ve really done is argue over Twitter and-”

“Woah, okay, calm down Lance. You’re running off on a tangent. Why are you so concerned about this anyway?” Keith’s eyebrows furrow. He’s never seen Lance like this. He’s huddled pretty deep in his chair, a somewhat mortified expression on his face.

“I just…” he trails off. “I don’t know. Just… Nevermind. Forget I said anything.”

Keith wants to say something, but nothing is coming to him. It feels like this came out of nowhere, and Keith isn’t really sure how to interpret it. He hasn’t had many friends before, so he isn’t really sure what defines a ‘friend’ to him.

Keith has always kind of liked Lance. Well, not really ‘kind of’ considering he watches all of his videos and never misses an upload, but Lance has only recently found out Keith even existed. Could Keith even really consider Lance a friend when they’ve only hung out a few times, or is Lance still just an idol to him?

Lance has turned his chair back around to face the TV, but Keith speaks anyway. “Sure, we argue a lot… but I don’t think that doesn’t make us friends. In the very least, we’re friendly towards each other, which counts for something, doesn’t it?

“And maybe we don’t know a lot about each other… but that’s how friendships usually start, isn’t it? It’s not like we can know everything about each other off the bat, but that doesn’t mean we can’t be friends. Wouldn’t we learn more about each other through our friendship?”

Lance turns his chair back around, giving Keith a strange look. “I guess so, I’m just. I’m sorry, it was a stupid question…”

Keith moves so he’s sitting rather than laying down, and he leans forward, resting his elbows on his knees. “I don’t think it’s stupid, I just want to understand why you’re concerned about it.”

“The reason for me asking is stupid, just forget it. It doesn’t matter,” Lance shakes his head, moving to turn back around.

“Do you want to be friends?”

Lance pauses, turning to look at Keith.

“Well, sure. You’re pretty cool-”

“Well wouldn’t friends tell each other about this kind of stuff?”

Lance looks at Keith for a long moment, before glancing away. “I don’t want to burden you with my issues. You shouldn’t have to deal with this…”

“But that’s not how this works! If we are friends, then you would tell me about this and we’d work through it together. You solve the issue, not dismiss it, Lance.”

“Okay! Alright, fine. I just…” Lance trails off. “I… I like to know what people think of me… I can just get, pretty self-conscious is all. It’s stupid really, I know, just-” Lance trails off. “I don’t know.”

Keith frowns. “Why?”

Lance looks miserable, his face is turned down, his lips are in a tight frown, and his arms are crossed over his chest. He glares at Keith, but Keith doesn’t back down.

“It’s stupid-”

“Stop trying to decide what is and isn’t stupid, Lance! I clearly don’t think it’s stupid, I just want to know so I can help you,” Keith gives Lance a hard look.

“It is stupid though! It’s just,” Lance sighs. “I feel like I’m not… I feel like I’m not good enough sometimes.”

“Not good enough?”

“Keith, would you still be here if there wasn’t a snowstorm outside?” Lance asks.

“Well- I mean. If you invited me to stay, sure,” Keith says.

“Would you want that, though?”

“Why wouldn’t I?”

The question catches Lance off guard. His eyes widen for a moment, but then they narrow into slits.

“You’re just saying that.”

“I’m not!”

“Everyone does, Keith!” Lance shouts, abruptly stopping and taking a small breath. His voice is softer when he speaks, but tense, “I’m such a pain to hang around! I always act like I’m the best so no one can see that I’m actually just the worst! I hit on practically anything humanoid and breathing! It sucks! I’m just awful to be around!”

“That literally just doesn’t make sense, Lance! I’ve hung around you for a few weeks now, and I’ll be blunt, I just don’t hang around people I don’t like. If I didn’t like you, I wouldn’t be around you!”

“Maybe, but you recently started up a new YouTube channel. Who’s to say-”

“I know where this is going, and I’m honestly a little sick you would think I’d do that. I wouldn’t use you for fame- I literally-” Keith groans. “Okay, let me tell you something. I’ve spent the past couple years of my life waking freakishly early so I could go to work, and get home in time to be able to watch your videos. I was always home when you uploaded, was always one of the first few hundred to like your video. I’ve never missed an upload, Lance.

“I made my channel so I could meet you, yes. But I don’t really care about my channel, I don’t care about YouTube. I wanted to meet you, because to me, you’re like… my idol. I thought you were so cool when you sniped an entire enemy team in a game, or when you were able to land a snowball shot on a small, moving friend of yours while riding down a slope yourself. That was cool! And I wanted to learn more about you, because you’re amazing!”

Keith takes a deep breath, feeling his cheeks heat up at the look Lance is giving him. His eyebrows are furrowed, and he’s looking at Keith with such awe it almost seems like he’s going to cry.

Keith quietly stands up and takes a step towards Lance. “I feel honestly lucky to have been able to meet you at all, so in my mind, there’s no way I could think of you as awful. Because to me, you’re just… amazing.”

Lance doesn’t move for a moment, his eyes locked on Keith’s. Then he's a blur of movement, tripping over himself before he's locked his arms around Keith in a tight hug, his face buried into the crook of Keith’s neck.

Keith jumps a bit at the sudden action, but slowly wraps his arms around Lance. Lance is shaking, just slightly. His voice wavers when he speaks.

“Thank you…”

ooo

Lance startles awake, a heavy weight on his legs. He slowly blinks open his eyes to find the TV still on, the screen dimmed and reading “Are you still watching…?” with a ‘resume’ and ‘back to browse’ under it.

There’s a blanket lazily thrown and crumpled on top of him, pillows strewn across the floor and the remote nowhere to be found. Keith is half curled up on top of him, half falling off the side of the couch, his black hair tousled and sticking to his face.

Lance faintly remembers watching movies side by side with Keith, but can not, for the life of him, remember falling asleep like this. Lance slowly scoots out from under Keith, trying his best not to wake him. Once he’s up, he pushes Keith so he’s not about to fall off the couch, and groggily starts towards the kitchen.

He stretches as he makes himself a cup of coffee, searching the cupboard for anything breakfast like. He pulls out some pancake mix when he hears his phone go off in the main room.

He searches for a good five minutes before it goes off again and Lance finds it. He has to steal it out from under Keith, but manages without much trouble. His phone’s on 10%, but still going strong, and Lance checks his messages.

They’re from Hunk:

10:23  
Hey! Sorry I couldn’t message you when I got here, but I’m all safe and sound and all that! How’s everything going with you? I saw a bit of the stream last night… you guys sure went on for a while didn’t you? I thought you didn’t like streams?”

10:29  
Lance?”

Leave it to Hunk to leave a million questions in one text. Lance is slow in his typing.

10:32  
yeah im here, bud. had to wrestle my phone from the mullet, he ended up staying ove r bcuz of a storm. everything’s fine… figuring out what to make 4 breakfast, but oterwise, doin fine. ...i dont really like streams but we were having fun so ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯

Lance sets aside his phone so he can read the ingredient measurements for the pancake mix. He slowly mixes together the substances in a bowl, prepping a pan and turning the stove on. His phone goes off when he pours the first pancake. Lance finishes the other three that’ll fit on the pan before leaning over to check it.

10:34  
Well that’s good! It looked like you guys were having fun! I have to attend to my family and stuff now, but I’ll talk to you later, okay?

Lance is about to start responding when he gets another message. He groans when he finds it’s from Pidge.

10:35  
I’m outside, and I know you don’t own a motorcycle. What is Keith still doing over?

Lance types a quick ‘see you later’ to Hunk before flipping his pancakes and rushedly typing out a response to Pidge. 

10:37  
there was a crazy snowstorm last night, i thought you knew!! he had to stay over, couldnt risk riding in the storm

The response is immediate.

10:37  
Uh huh. 

Lance rolls his eyes.

10:38  
dont uh huh me, young man. also dont slam te door open hes still asleep

That sure doesn’t stop him, when Lance cringes at the sound of the door slamming against the wall. There’s a quick moment as he assumes Pidge locks the door, and then he’s striding past the living room and into the kitchen.

“What’re you doing here, anyway?” Lance glares at Pidge as he sits up on the counter, reading something on the box for the pancake mix. He’s wearing a green t-shirt and long cargo pants. He has a black hoodie tied around his waist, and his glasses are resting on the tip of his nose.

“You said you wanted me to check over your equipment today,” Pidge raises an eyebrow as he looks at Lance.

“Oh, yeah. Right,” Lance turns back to his pancakes, taking the four finished ones off the pan and starting on the next batch. Pidge is silent as he works, through multiple batches of pancakes, slowly running out of batter.

“Want me to wake the mullet?” Pidge hops off the counter. “It looks like you’re just about done.”

“As long as it doesn’t involve tipping him off the couch to do so, then yeah,” Lance says, raising an eyebrow at Pidge when he snorts.

“So soaking him in water is valid?”

“Pidge-”

“Alright, alright,” he scuttles off into the living room, leaning over the couch and shaking Keith. Lance rolls his eyes as he finishes up the last pancakes, pulling out some plates and utensils and setting them up at the dining table. He then places the plate of pancakes in the middle of the table, turning to find Keith groggily standing as Pidge bounds towards the pancakes.

“Morning, mullet!” Lance calls cheerily to Keith, who turns to him with a half-hearted glare.

"Morning.”

“I made breakfast,” Lance says, gesturing to the dining table. “Feel free to join Pidge and me for some pancakes.”

“Okay. Thanks,” as Keith finds a seat at the table, Lance pulls butter and syrup from the kitchen and puts them down on the table, where Pidge has already stacked four pancakes up on his plate. Lance shoots him a look.

“What? I didn’t have breakfast, alright?” Pidge shrugs, snatching the syrup.

“Whatever,” Lance rolls his eyes, taking a seat beside Keith. He doesn’t look like he’s bothered to try and fix his hair, and is tiredly pulling pancakes onto his plate with his fork. He turns to see Lance looking at him and furrows his eyebrows.

“What?”

“Nothing!” Lance quickly looks away, grabbing a plate and grabbing some pancakes himself. When Pidge snickers, he shoots him a glare.

The morning passes easily like this. A quick glance outside shows that the weather is perfectly clear enough for Keith to leave, but he instead trails behind Lance around the house, just, hanging out.

After breakfast, Pidge is quick to get to work on the equipment, sitting cross-legged on the floor with the equipment laid out across the table. Lance seats himself on the right end of the couch, and Keith sits down in the middle.

“So how much have you two been keeping up on social media?” Pidge asks, screwing open Lance’s handheld camera.

“I always keep up, Pidge. You know this,” Lance rolls his eyes.

“I mostly try to ignore it,” Keith shrugs.

“Well the #TeamLance and #TeamKeith tags have never been stronger. After that stream, everyone is blowing up on Twitter, taking sides with who was right in your arguments. I saw a lot of people leaning towards #TeamKeith,” Pidge smirks up at Lance.

Lance dramatically gasps, “How could they?”

Keith snorts, “See? I was right.”

“They’re opinions! There is no right!”

“Well I just had the better opinion then,” Keith laughs as Lance glares at him.

“That’s not how opinions work.”

“Anyway,” Pidge interrupts them. “I’ve also seen a ton of requests for you guys to do more stuff like that. That stream was one of your most viewed, Lance.”

“I mean, I’m down to do more streams with Keith,” Lance shrugs. “Or we could make videos or whatever.”

“I’m up for it,” Keith says.

“But what are you guys going to do?” Pidge looks up for a moment. “Your guys’ content is like, polar opposite from each other.”

“I don’t know,” Lance crosses his right leg over his left. “Plus, there’s the question of whose account it would go on.”

“What about a…” Keith starts. “What about a shared YouTube account? Where we’d post all the stuff we do together. Our content could literally be anything… but it’d be the both of us.”

Lance hums, “That’s actually not a bad idea, mullet. But we should do something big to commemorate it. Like, a week long event or something. Just something cool.”

“Yeah…” Keith hums.

“You know… my family has that cabin rented out, by the lakeside? We were going to go but Matt isn’t going to be back until after the allotted time is over, and we didn’t want to go without him. However, it’s too late for us to cancel it, and it’s already paid for. You guys could go hang out there for the week and do a bunch of videos in the snow and stuff.

“I mean, just think about it! You’re in a completely different place than you’re used to, there’s a giant lake right next door and snow everywhere. Imagine the games you could play! People would love it, considering how they just loved how you nailed me in the face,” Pidge glares at Lance.

“That does sound like a lot of fun,” Lance glances at Keith.

“I’m down,” Keith says. “When did you have it booked for?”

“Next week,” Pidge says.

“You got to rent it all week? You lucky ducky,” Lance narrows his eyes at Pidge. He only shrugs, slowly putting Lance’s camera back together.

“What can I say?” Pidge laughs. “I’m just that good.”

ooo

Initially, Keith was pumped to spend the week at the lakeside cabin. It took him a bit too long to realize that it would just be him and Lance. Alone. For a week straight.

The two of them had to go grocery shopping to make sure they had enough food for the week, which was surprisingly fun. As it turns out, Lance is an avid cart racer and made sure to get the two of them in a good amount of trouble before checkout.

Now however, Keith is terrified. He’s shaking, but he’s willing to blame it on the cold, his hands tightening on the handlebars of his motorcycle. There hadn’t been enough room for Keith in Lance’s Jeep after they packed it full of supplies, so Keith volunteered to risk the cold on his motorcycle. Not like he had much of a choice in the first place.

Keith’s learned that Lance is a surprisingly fast driver, going well over the speed limit on occasion. Keith isn’t entirely sure what to make of that but speeds up to make sure he stays right behind Lance.

Eventually, they pull off the main road, and Lance slows considerably. It’s a few minutes of empty road before they pull up to a nice looking cabin, that’s surprisingly large. When he parks next to Lance, he can see there’s a nice balcony over the front door, meaning two floors, in the least.

Lance gets out of the car, running over to Keith just as he’s pulling off his helmet. Lance has his camera in his hands, and Keith raises an eyebrow at the lens.

“We’re here!” Lance pans to the cabin, before promptly shoving the camera in Keith’s hands. “Come on, I’m going to give you a tour.”

“Lance, you’ve never been here before,” Keith laughs, keeping the camera locked on Lance.

“Doesn’t mean I can’t give a tour, come on!”

Keith rushes behind Lance, following him from room to room. Everything is absolutely stunning, it’s clearly a very expensive building. The doorknobs are a light silver, a deep contrast to the chocolate wood of the doors. The countertop in the kitchen is a fine, polished granite, and the entire house is decorated with expensive artwork and sculptures.

Lance dismisses the camera, and Keith quickly stops the recording. Lance takes the camera from him, smiling. “We have a lot to unpack. We should get started on that.”

“Right,” Keith grins back, and they make their way back outside.

After lots of hauling of paper bags and bedding, and they’ve both parked their vehicles in the garage, Keith flops down on the couch in the main room, propping his arms up along the back of the couch. It’s right by the front door, and in front of the kitchen, and has a nice, flat-screen TV.

Keith yawns right as Lance bursts in through the front door. He has a camera in his hands, and he quickly slips out of his winter jacket and sits down beside Keith. Once he’s sat down, he closes the camera and turns it off, setting it down on the rich, dark wood coffee table.

Lance leans his head back so it brushes against Keith’s arm. Keith doesn’t really mind, he’s tired from the long drive and all the unpacking.

“What time is it?” Keith asks.

“Uh,” Lance fumbles to get his phone out. “9:32”

“We should probably figure out where we’ll be sleeping then,” Keith moves to sit up, but Lance moves his arm to block him.

“Woah, Keith. Just breathe for a second, jeez. We’ve been driving since like, three, and unpacking. Just relax for a minute, dude,” Lance laughs.

“Whatever you say, mom,” Keith rolls his eyes, but waits a few minutes anyway.

Keith gets up when Lance does, which happens to be a good half-hour after Lance told him ‘a minute.’ Keith likes the bedroom that’s by the front door, on the second floor with the nice balcony that overlooks the forest, whereas Lance likes the room at the complete opposite end of the house that overlooks the lake. Keith finds it amusing, but doesn’t say anything about it as he moves his stuff into his room for the week.

Once he’s set himself up in his room, he meets Lance back in the main room. Lance has his camera out again, and he’s smiling.

“It’s about time you finished, mullet. Come on, we’re going to go check out the lake.”

“Lance, it’s ten o’clock at night. The camera isn’t going to be able to pick up anything.”

“Ah, but that’s where you’re wrong!” Lance exclaims, flicking on a flashlight in Keith’s eyes. He recoils, squinting a bit.

“Okay, okay!” Lance quickly moves the flashlight and begins towards the backdoor. It’s glass and slides open, and Keith shuts it as Lance begins his way down towards the lake. “Lance, please don’t slip on the snow.”

Lance stops at the edge of the water, turning the flashlight and camera towards Keith. He, luckily, keeps it out of his eyes this time.

“Keith, how do you feel about this lake?”

Keith turns and looks out on the water. The stars and the moon are reflected back on the water’s surface, constellations dancing across the gentle ripples on the dark water.

“It’s a big puddle of water, Lance, what do you expect me to feel?”

“I don’t know. Make me some deep, angsty poetry about how the lake reminds you of the color of my eyes,” Lance smirks at him behind his camera.

“What makes you think I write poetry?” Keith sits down on the snow-laden ground, ignoring the cold as Lance sits down as well.

“Uhm, hello? You always look so dark and brooding, it’s a no-brainer! Of course you write poetry,” Lance says, turning the camera around so it captures the both of them. Lance has to press up close to Keith to get them both in the frame. “Tell me I’m right.”

Keith hesitates. “I might have used to. When I was a kid.”

Lance breaks out laughing, and Keith has to hold the camera to make sure he doesn’t drop it. From there, they discuss to the camera about the plans for the week, how the uploads would be coming a week after they actually happen (they really did not want to have to edit while they were out in the cabin). Once that’s finished, they say goodbye to the camera, closing it up and turning it off.

Keith’s back is freezing by then, and he’s shivering lightly, but Lance is worse. His teeth are chattering, and he’s already standing, walking back up to the cabin. Keith follows closely behind him, having to jog to catch up to him.

They both take rounds making sure all of the doors are locked before meeting back up in the main room.

“It’s about time we got to bed,” Keith yawns, turning off the main light. There is still a few lamps defiantly glowing that he starts towards. “It’s like, what, eleven o’clock now?”

“Something like that,” Lance is lounging on the couch, watching Keith slowly turn out all the lights. It takes him a few tries to figure out how to turn off one particular lamp.

"Well, goodnight then,” Keith says, turning out the last lamp.

"‘Night.”

ooo

Keith wakes to the feeling of his leg being shaken. He groggily blinks open his eyes, greeting by a lens. Lance is holding a camera up to his face, grinning.

“Morning, mullet!”

“What time is it?” Keith rolls over, burrowing deeper into his blankets.

“It’s eight o’clock, dude! Get up! I made breakfast!” Lance shakes him again.

“Don’t care. Not hungry. Leave me,” Keith is lying through his teeth, his stomach aches with hunger. But he can barely get his eyes to open.

“Aw, don’t be like that,” a sudden flash of light makes Keith’s eyes hurt. He slowly opens them to find Lance has opened the blinds. “Wakey, wakey, eggs ‘n bakey! Or somethin…”

Lance shakes him against and Keith groans.

“Keith Kogane, I will not hesitate to make you get out of bed if you won’t do it yourself,” Lance threatens.

“Whatever, fine, get out. Give me like, five minutes and I’ll be down.”

“Alright, but hurry it up,” Lance leaves and Keith rolls out of bed, rubbing his eyes and yawning. He changes into a black t-shirt and black jeans, brushing out his hair before making his way downstairs, stretching his arms above his head.

“What did you make?” Keith takes a seat at the counter, and Lance turns, swiveling the camera towards him.

“Eggs and bacon, duh. Did you not hear me?” Lance rolls his eyes and Keith snorts.

“Of course I did.”

“So, what’re we doing today, anyway?” Keith accepts the plate of scrambled eggs and bacon Lance hands him. “Snowman making? Snowmen?”

“Yeah,” Lance nods. “Are you ready to get your butt kicked? I’m going to have the best snowman the world has ever seen!”

“You keep telling yourself that,” Keith says, laughing. He eats his breakfast slowly, and halfway through, Lance stops recording him.

Once they’re both finished eating, it’s not that hard to find a place to build. There’s flat snowy ground just about everywhere around the house, just before the forest. Keith pulls his jacket tighter around himself as Lance sets up the camera on a tripod. Keith adjusts the microphone clipped to his shirt, making sure it’s on as Lance turns on the camera.

“Alright, you ready, mullet?” Lance shakes out his arms, backing up from the camera.

"Born ready,” Keith smirks.

“Alright, three… twoonego!”

Lance rushes to start forming the snow into a large ball, just to the left of the camera. Keith heads to the right, moving a bit slower than Lance. He takes his time forming the base of his snowman, rounding it out and making sure it’s as close to a full sphere as he can get.

“Might wanna hurry up over there, mullet,” Lance calls from across the clearing. “My snowman’s lookin’ pretty good…”

“I dunno, Lance,” Keith says, hefting a snowball bigger than his torso up on top of his original snowball. “I think yours’ has seen better days.”

Lance makes an offended noise that makes Keith laugh. “Excuse you! Jim can hear you, you know!”

“You named your snowman ‘Jim?’” Keith snorts.

“My snowman named himself Jim, thank you very much,” Lance is putting on his snowman’s head while Keith begins forming his. Lance rushes inside to get the necessary items to form the snowman's features, while Keith finishes forming his snowman’s head.

Lance finishes well before Keith, but Keith’s snowman is overall smoother and cleaner than Lance’s.

“I don’t know, Lance. Jim looks pretty sad,” Keith looks Lance’s snowman up and down.

“Yeah, well, your snowman looks-” Lance sputters, waving his hands up and down Keith’s snowman. “It’s worse than mine!”

“Ooh, you got me there,” Keith laughs, watching Lance’s face go red with embarrassment.

“The chat will just have to decide,” Lance points to the camera.

“Sure, sure,” Keith rolls his eyes.

“They better vote for mine though. It’s clearly and obviously the winner,” Lance rolls his eyes, resting his elbow on Jim’s ‘shoulder.’ The weight of his elbow shifts the snow, and the precariously balanced snowman’s head rolls off, landing at Keith’s feet. Lance looks down at the pile of snow, and Keith has to cover his mouth to keep himself from breaking out laughing.

“I completely blame Keith for this,” Lance says slowly, looking and meeting Keith’s eyes. Keith can’t help himself at that point, barking out a loud laugh. Lance’s face flushes red and he looks away from Keith.

“If it makes you feel better,” Keith starts. “You can destroy my snowman too.”

“Oh I will definitely take you up on that offer,” Lance storms over to Keith’s snowman. He looks it in the ‘eyes’ as he kicks the middle of the snowman. The snow is so densely packed, though, that his foot only really shifts the snow slightly.

Keith starts laughing so hard he has to bend over and catch his breath while Lance looks at him miserably. Lance then backs up, taking a running start and barreling head-first into Keith’s snowman.

Lance lands in the snow behind the snowman, tumbling to a slow stop. Keith is still laughing, watching Lance with a small smile.

“There! I did it! I’m cool, shut up Keith! Just- oh my god, cut the video, I’m gonna die,” Lance collapses in the snow, his face burning red.

Keith snorts, but turns off the camera anyway. He walks over next to Lance, laying down in the snow beside him.

“We should probably get inside soon,” Keith starts.

“Yeah,” Lance shrugs. “Probably.”

Keith frowns, “Are you… are you alright?”

“Hm? Yeah, I’m fine,” Lance says. “Mourning for Jim.”

Keith chuckles, propping himself on one elbow and ruffling Lance’s hair, “Jim will live on in our hearts. Don’t worry.”

Lance turns his head, giving Keith a wide smile that makes his heart skip a beat. He feels the blush rising to his cheeks, and quickly stands up.

"Come on, let’s get inside,” Keith begins trudging towards the cabin, grabbing the camera and the tripod on his way. He doesn’t look back to see if Lance is following him, but hears his footsteps approaching from behind.

Keith puts the equipment down on the coffee table, shrugging off his heavy coat and hanging it on the coat rack by the door. Keith shivers, sitting himself down on the end of the couch.

A lot of the rest of the day is spent lazing around mostly, though Keith is used to it. And, it’s kind of nice, if he’s being honest with himself. He and Lance can just freely hang out, watch TV, do whatever, and it all feels easy. There’s nothing he has to do, now that they have the footage for the video, so he just does whatever he wants.

After a while, Lance stands from the couch, moving to turn off the TV.

“Hey, Keith. I was planning on going stargazing. Wanna join me?” Lance asks, shrugging back on his winter coat.

“Uh, sure,” Keith gets up from the couch, grabbing his jacket from the coat rack and following behind Lance. It’s a slow walk, but Keith stays at Lance’s side the entire time.

Lance flops down onto the snow, lacing his gloved hands behind his head. Keith raises an eyebrow at him before joining Lance on the snow, lying close to his side. Lance looks up into the dark sky, watching the small lights twinkling beside the moon.

“Do you like it here?” Lance asks.

He can hear Keith shift slightly, “Yeah. A lot, actually.”

“Yeah?” Lance turns his head to look at Keith. He has his eyes trained on the sky, blinking slowly.

“Yeah. No responsibilities. No worries. Just hanging out and having fun. It’s nice,” Keith says. He turns and his eyes meet Lance’s, “What about you?”

“Yeah, I like it here,’ Lance says, turning his head to look back to the sky. “It’s different from my usual Christmas breaks. Usually I’m with my family, which is always loud. But here it’s just… quiet. It’s nice.”

Keith hums in agreement.

Lance doesn’t say anything more, letting them sit in comfortable silence. The snow chills his back, but he pays little mind to it. Keith, however, starts shivering, and Lance glances at him.

“Are you cold?”

“Uh, yeah, a little I guess,” Keith shrugs, crossing his arms as he shivers again.

“Here, uh, come ‘ere,” Lance unfolds his left arm, holding it out to Keith.

“Uh…?”

Lance fights a blush as Keith stares at him confusedly, “We can share like, body heat and stuff. Keep you warm.”

“Right, okay.”

Lance lets out a slow breath as Keith scoots closer and nestles his face into Lance’s shoulder. He struggles to relax the coiling tightness in his stomach, turning to look back up at the stars.

“So…” Keith starts after a moment. “Why do you like the color blue?”

Lance blinks, tilting his head slightly in thought. “I’ve never really thought about it before…”

Keith shifts a little, “I like the color red because of how intense it is. It’s the color of the sun, of fire… it’s bold.”

Lance hums.

“I guess I like the color blue because of how calm it is,” Lance starts. “It’s the color of the ocean, of the sky… It makes me think of my family.”

“Your family?” Keith cocks his head. “What about them?”

“Well,” Lance purses his lips in thought. The thought why does Keith care in the first place? floats around in his head. “I remember that every summer, everyone in the family would come together and we’d all go to the beach. We’d spend the day screwing around in the ocean and playing in the sand, and spend the night around a fire pit, catching up and just… enjoying each other’s company.”

“That’s…” Keith flushes red. “A lot deeper than my reasoning.”

Lance barks out a laugh, turning to look at Keith.

“I mean… ” he chuckles, “You don’t need some deep, dark reason to like a color.”

“Sure,” Keith looks like he’s fighting a smile, turning to look at the sky. “It just makes my reasons feel silly in comparison.”

Lance snickers, “Yeah, it kind of does.”

“Well, no need to rub it in,” Keith mumbles, pouting.

Lance laughs but doesn’t say anything further. He doesn’t have much else to say, until his mind starts wandering. He thinks about how easy it is to be around Keith. It’s relaxing, he feels like he can tell him anything, as he did back at Lance’s house.

“Do you have something like what I do, Keith?” Lance asks slowly.

“Like what?”

“Like my self-consciousness. Something you feel, that’s so irrational and illogical that it feels like you shouldn’t feel it… but your mind disagrees with your heart and you feel it anyway?”

“...Yeah.”

“You do? I hope you don’t find this too prying, but… could I know what it is?”

Keith sighs, turning from Lance to look up at the sky.

“Sometimes I feel like… maybe I wasn’t meant to exist.”

Keith’s words leave a foul taste in Lance’s mouth, and he quickly sits up, a concerned look on his face, “What do you mean?”

“Lance lay down. It’s not like a constant thought it my head. Just… something I thought before, or used to think.

“I don’t remember my parents very well. They both passed before I could properly meet them. Then, I went from orphanage to orphanage, was adopted and taken back multiple times. It made me think… if anyone wanted me at all. The job I had before I did YouTube and got popular was the first one that I could actually hold.

“Of course, I know that I’m wanted. Especially now that I have really good friends like you, Hunk, and Pidge. And of course, there’s Shiro, who when he found me, never left my side… but… Sometimes I just think, maybe I don’t deserve you guys anyway.”

“That’s stupid.”

Keith laughs. It’s loud and obnoxious, and Lance can’t fathom why he likes the sound of it. “You asked for something illogical, didn’t you?”

Lance frowns down at Keith, “Well, sure but… It still feels wrong to me.”

“I know,” Keith sighs. “Lance, please lay down. It’s nothing to worry about, really.” Keith holds out his arm, and Lance flops down, repositioning his arm under Keith’s neck.

Lance can’t stop thinking about their conversation from before. Lance had wanted to know if they were friends. Which now they are… right? So then why did he still not feel satisfied?

ooo

Keith doesn’t entirely remember walking back to the cabin, but figures he must have when he startles awake. He turns to check the time on his phone.

4:27 am.

Ugh.

Keith isn’t an insomniac or anything, he’s used to getting up early for his job. The first day at the cabin he slept in, but now his internal clock’s kicking back up, telling him to get up and get ready for the rest of his day.

Knowing he won’t be able to fall asleep again, Keith gets out of bed and stretches, lazily running a brush through his hair before pulling on a red hoodie and grey sweatpants. Lance wouldn’t be awake for a while, so he figured he’d spend his morning comfortably.

He decides Pop-Tarts would make a fine breakfast this morning. He didn’t really want to make something and then have Lance wake up hours later to have a cold, refrigerated breakfast.

So he plops himself down on the couch with a box of red velvet Pop-Tarts, turning on the TV and keeping it quiet so Lance can sleep.

It actually takes a surprisingly little amount of time for Lance to wake up. Keith hears him first at 6:30, exactly, as a loud thump comes from his room, followed by a groan. Then a shower running for a few minutes afterwards before he bursts from his room, talking animatedly to, what Keith assumes, is his camera.

“I think this time I’ll just throw the blankets off of him to wake him up-”

Lance stops as he arrives is the living room, and Keith gives him a cheeky smile in response to his crestfallen face.

“Good morning,” Keith greets. “Pop-Tart?” He holds out a Pop-Tart to Lance who shakes his head.

“Dude, how early did you get up? Yesterday you slept in until, like, eight,” Lance snatches the Pop-Tart from his hands, giving Keith a dubious look.

“Like, 5 in the morning,” Keith shrugs. “It was only a couple hours ago.”

“Yeah, well you’re not allowed to wake up before me,” Lance rolls his eyes. “I was gonna wake you up differently every morning and it was going to be great!”

“Sorry?” Keith laughs as Lance takes a bite out of the Pop-Tart.

“Damn right, you’re sorry,” Lance turns and makes his way to the kitchen.

The morning is slow as Lance prepares a real breakfast and Keith gets dressed in something better for snow shenanigans. Once they’ve eaten, they pull out all their recording equipment as begin setting up on a clear-ish spot right next to the lake.

Lance holds his handheld camera at Keith as he slowly sets up one of the cameras.

“So Keith…”

“Yeah?” Keith turns slightly, starting to work on adjusting his mic.

“What are we doing today, bud?”

“Uh, a snow fort? I think it was? I don’t remember, I thought that was your job,” Keith rolls his eyes, clipping his mic to the collar of his shirt.

“Well, you got it right anyway! But it’s not going to be just any snow fort, right Keith?”

“Well I remember you asking for a two story snow fort, which is so not happening.”

“What?! We could totally do it, you’re just being a downer!”

“Lance, can we get the real recording started please?” Keith laughs as he raises an eyebrow at the camera.

“We are making this two stories, I hope you know,” Lance says, turning off the camera.

“Yeah, we’ll see.”

After a quick introduction to the cameras, they get to work. They don’t have any real tools, per se, so it’s mostly just the two of them scooping snow by hand and trying to make the walls thick enough so they don’t crumble.

Keith half expects Lance to give up really early on and dramatically whine, but to Keith’s surprise, he doesn’t. He’s really set on making this snow fort two stories, and Keith can’t fathom why.

They eventually get the walls to Lance’s height, and Keith is perfectly content with that, but Lance is still going.

“Lance, come on, let’s just put a roof on this sucker and call it good,” Keith puts his hands on his hips, watching Lance building up the walls higher.

“I said two stories, we’re making this two stories,” Lance stands his ground.

“Okay, so how do you plan to make the second floor solid enough to stand on?” Keith asks.

“Well-” Keith laughs as Lance turns to him, his face flushing red. “Don’t laugh at me!”

“Lance, the thought must have come to you at some point, that the floor wouldn’t hold for a second story, right?”

“You’re just not believing in this fort enough,” Lance looks like he’s fighting a smile. “You have to believe that we can make a second story!”

“We literally just can’t,” Keith laughs as Lance pouts at him.

The fort ends up only being one story tall. They form the roof out of twigs, and cut out nice little windows that overlook the lake. After everything, they give the camera a small little tour (even though the inside is practically empty).

It’s another lazy afternoon as the two hang out on the couch, watching TV and playing games. They’ve done their recording for the day, so there’s not much else to do, at least nothing they have to do.

Lance somehow came to the conclusion that Mario Kart would be a good idea and hooked his Switch up to the TV, shoving a red controller in Keith’s hands while Lance got the blue one.

After multiple games of Lance getting first and Keith slowly working his way out of last, Keith gives up. It’s seven o’clock, and while Keith isn’t exactly tired, he doesn’t really want to play games anymore.

“I was thinking I’d just hang out in the fort for a while,” Keith shrugs on his coat. “May as well enjoy it before it’s destroyed. You can join me if you want.”

“Sure, I’ll be out in a few minutes,” Lance says distractedly as he turns off the Switch.

It’s snowing outside, but it’s just a light snow, nothing too crazy. Keith ducks under the doorway into their fort, settling himself down and sitting against the back wall.

Lances stumbles in a few minutes later, as promised, slumping against the wall beside Keith as he lets out a long sigh.

“Tired?” Keith asks with a small smile.

“Ah, a little bit, I guess,” Lance shrugs, letting his head fall onto Keith’s shoulder. “This fort was a lot of work and effort, and so was kicking your butt in Mario Kart.”

“You got first every time, Lance,” Keith laughs. “I was lucky if I didn’t get twelfth.”

“It was stressful! I had a reputation to maintain at that point!” Lance exclaims, moving his head off of Keith’s shoulder and dramatically sprawling himself across Keith’s lap, his back pressing into Keith’s legs.

“Sure, sure,” Keith laughs, looking down at Lance who’s half-heartedly glaring at him.

Lance goes quiet after a moment and doesn’t move off of Keith. It takes everything in him to not say something about it, blaming his reddening cheeks on the cold.

“Why did you start Youtube?” Keith asks instead.

“It was mostly because I was bored,” Lance shrugs. I had some extra time so I downloaded a free recording application and shot footage of me shooting things. I really didn’t expect to get so popular so fast.”

“Must be your charismatic charm,” Keith laughs drily.

“Hey, I am very charismatic!” Lance frowns.

“I know, I just said so.”

“It was so obvious you were being sarcastic.”

“You don’t know that.”

“You-” Lance laughs. “Alright, sure. Just means you think I am charismatic.”

“I was being sarcastic,” Keith says immediately, and Lance bursts out laughing, curling his arms over his stomach. Keith grins as well, rolling his eyes.

“Aw, come on,” Lance grins.

Keith looks out the window of their fort while his mind wanders.

“Have you ever…” Keith starts, and Lance turns his head to look at him. He’s looking away from Lance, his eyes on the lake. “Have you ever thought about something so much… Thought through something you could say to someone a million times, and just never said it?"

“Yeah.”

“Like what?”

“I can’t think of anything in particular,” Lance shrugs. “There is a lot I don’t tell people that I easily could. I waited for five years before telling my parents that I’m bi. They-”

”You’re bi?” Keith exclaims, staring at Lance wide-eyed.

Lance snorts, “Yeah? Dude I thought it was obvious.”

“Oh,” Keith slowly settles back down.

“They were really understanding about it though. I think if there’s one thing I’ve learned through waiting to say something, it’s that it’s not worth it. If you have something to say, say it, and say it loud. Don’t be so scared of the outcome of your words, and just say them,” Lance finishes.

Keith is silent for a few moments. It’s a comfortable silence, with nothing to do but watch the water.

“Cool,” Keith says, fighting the quick pounding of his heart in his chest.

“What, did you have something to say?” Lance asks, sitting up a little.

“No, it’s fine."

“That’s kind of a random thing to bring up if you don’t have anything to say,” Lance stares at him suspiciously.

“I know, but, uh-”

“Dude, you can tell me,” Lance assures him.

“I… Well, I guess I should just say it then,” Keith murmurs, and Lance turns his head to look at him. “Just for the record… so I don’t keep this to myself for years on end… I think I…” Keith pauses, glancing at Lance. “I think I like you… I know I do… a lot actually…”

Lance blinks.

“I mean like… in more than just a friend kind of way,” Keith stumbles with his words, his cheeks reddening. “‘Cause I’ve always kind of liked you, ever since I started watching your videos, but now I’ve met you and I really feel like I know you and I like-”

“Keith,” Lance interrupts his tangent, and Keith can feel his heart beating hard and fast in his chest. His eyes dart away from Lance’s, towards the snow packed ground. With his free hand, he brushes his fingers against Keith’s cheek.

“Just for the record, I think I like you too,” Lance says. He smiles, “As more than just a friend.”

Keith can hardly breathe. His back is freezing cold, but he can barely feel it. His mind feels like there are too many thoughts running through his head, but at the same time, there’s none. None but one, one that’s insisting he move, now. Do something.

So he does the only thing he can think to do. He leans forward, and he kisses Lance.

ooo

Lance sits up and meets Keith halfway. His lips are freezing cold but Lance can’t find the will to care. He tilts his head slightly into the kiss, his heart pounding fast in his chest as their noses bump. Lance’s face feels like it’s practically on fire, his stomach coiling tightly, yet fluttering loosely. He feels like he can barely breathe. Keith pulls away after a moment, his cheeks are a deep red, and he keeps his eyes anywhere except on Lance.

“I, uhm-” Keith starts, interrupted by a loud cracking sound. Lance looks up to where the sound came from, quickly pulling Keith’s face into the crook of his neck, covering him as their shoddily made twig and leaf roof crumbles down on top of them.

When the twig barrage stops, Lance pulls away from Keith a little, laughing as he brushes twigs from his hair. Keith snickers as well, softly plucking a twig from Lance’s hair.

“Ah, man,” Lance releases a breathy laugh. “I thought our fort would at least last the night.”

“Yeah,” Keith quietly agrees. “So, uhm…”

“Yeah?”

“I--we just--that just… happened,” Keith stutters, training his gaze on the ground.

“Yeah,” Lance laughs. “But now I’m freezing cold. We should head inside.”

“Uhm, yeah. Right,” Keith shifts a little bit. Lance quickly scoots off of him, standing up and wrapping his jacket a little tighter around his frame.

“Is something wrong?” Lance raises an eyebrow at Keith, ducking out of the fort.

“No! Just…” Keith slips out as well, beginning towards the cabin. “Went better than expected.” Lance laughs, snorting when Keith gives him a flustered look. “What?!”

“Dude, the roof fell in on us,” Lance struggles to catch his breath. “Doesn’t get better than that, does it?”

“Well, I meant-” Keith sighs.

“Dude, don’t sweat it,” Lance wraps his arm around Keith’s shoulders. “I get what you mean.”

“So then,” Keith says. “What does this make us?”

“What do you want us to be?” Lance asks. “I mean, usually if two people like each other, and they admit it to each other, than that usually makes them partners-”

“You don’t have to explain what a relationship is to me,” Keith rolls his eyes. “I just meant, like, since some people aren’t comfortable with... all that.”

“Sure, sure,” Lance laughs.

“So, then… partners?”

“You make it sound like we’re partners in crime rather than romantic partners-”

“Lance-”

“I’m just teasing!” Lance laughs, catching the way Keith’s face flushes red. “But, yeah. That sounds good to me.”

“We’re not going to…” Keith glances at Lance. “We’re not going to like, announce this on YouTube or anything, are we?”

“Ah, dude, imagine the views we’d get if we did, though!” Lance chuckles as Keith frowns. “Uhm, but yeah, no. If you don’t want to, we don’t have to.”

“Okay,” Keith opens up the back door. “Thank you.”

”Of course,” Lance has to take his arm off Keith’s shoulder to shrug off his jacket, promptly collapsing on the couch afterwards. Keith locks the backdoor and sits down next to him, slipping off his boots and bringing his socked feet up onto the couch. The clock reads 9:34.

“C’mere,” Lance says after a moment. “If we’re dating I’m getting all the benefits, and that includes snuggling. C’mere.” Keith laughs, but scoots closer anyway. Lance rolls his eyes, mumbling, “Do I have to do everything myself?” He hooks his arm under Keith’s legs, bringing them across his lap. Keith hesitates before wrapping his arms across Lance’s shoulders, pressing his face into the crook of Lance’s neck. “There we go,” Lance smiles, wrapping his left arm around Keith’s back and pressing a soft kiss to his forehead.

ooo

Keith startles, fully alert as cold, wet snow slides down his back.

“Lance!” he indignantly screeches, arching his back as he tries to get the snow out of his shirt.

“Yeah? What’s up, buttercup?” Lance replied smoothly, grinning as Keith turns around to glare at him. They’d gotten up the next morning to record a snowball fight, and they hadn’t even finished setting up yet.

“First off, no on the pet name,” Keith deadpans. “And second off, what the hell?!”

He manages to shake the snow out, but the shirt is now wet and clings to his back.

“I dunno, just thought it’d be funny,” Lance grins. “And it was so worth it.”

“Oh, we’ll see if it was ‘so worth it’ when I destroy you in this snowball fight,” Keith threatens, turning back to finish adjusting the camera.

“Oh, you have me shaking in my boots, mullet,” Lance says, stepping up next to Keith. He puts his arm around Keith shoulders, and when Keith glares at him, Lance sticks out his tongue.

“You are so going to pay for that,” Keith mumbles, turning on the camera. Lance can’t even stutter out a greeting to the camera before Keith ducks down, scooping snow into his hand, and smashing it against the back of Lance’s head.

“Woah! Jeez, mullet, calm down!”

“No can do,” Keith dives behind his premade snow cover. “This is happening now, and you’re going down.”

Keith forms a snowball, but when he ducks out of the cover of his small snow fort, there’s already a snowball whizzing towards him that nails him in the face. He can hear Lance laughing from across the clearing, and wipes the snow from his face before chucking his snowball at Lance.

Lance ducks just before it’s about to hit him, and Keith softly curses. He’s aggravated to find just about every one of Lance’s shots hit him, though, I guess he’s called Sharpshooter for a reason.

Keith, on the other hand, struggles to hit his mark, and tries to figure out a way to beat Lance as he hides behind his snow wall.

“Come on, mullet! You admit defeat already?” Lance calls out from across the clearing.

Lance can hit every shot he makes across the clearing, Keith thinks. But close range…?

Keith takes a deep breath, scooping snow up into both his hands. He stands quickly, already getting barraged with snow. He makes a break for Lance’s fort, and can see the horror on his face as Keith dives at him, slamming snow into his face and onto his back. He lands on top of Lance and begins shoveling snow onto him, smushing it into his hair and into his jacket.

“Holy crow, mullet! Get off me!” Lance squeaks between his laughter, pushing a handful of snow into Keith’s abdomen.

“Nope, this is what you get for shoveling snow down my shirt,” Keith says, digging his hands into the snow to prepare for his next attack. He doesn’t manage to, however, when Lance grabs the collar of his shirt and pulls him down, pressing his lips harshly against Keith’s.

Keith pulls back after a moment, bewildered. “I thought you said we wouldn’t do anything-”

“Eh,” Lance laughs. “We can cut that out.”

Keith can’t stutter out a response before Lance leans up again, grinning, and then there’s more snow sliding down Keith’s back.

“Lance!"

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! If there are any typos, go ahead and notify me. I want to fix them so that the story is more enjoyable for the next reader! Thank you so much!
> 
> I post updates on my stories and make icons [@malmaratus](https://malmaratus.tumblr.com/) on Tumblr, feel free to ask me anything!


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